hanniballectertetralogyfandomcom-20200213-history
Will Graham
Will Graham is a former FBI agent. He was the man responsible for the capture of the psychiatrist/cannibalistic serial killer known as Hannibal Lecter, however, in order to find the sadistic and mysterious serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy, Will sought help from the psychopath while the latter lay behind bars. He is the main protagonist of[[ Red Dragon| Red Dragon]]. Personality Will exhibits a very courageous attitude. Even though he feared Lecter and also feared the Tooth Fairy, he still sought them out in order to achieve his goals. He is known for his unique gift to be able to picture a person's pathology through very little sources, a gift which aided in Hannibal's capture. In the novels Pre-Red Dragon Before the events of Red Dragon, Will was searching for a killer who had been taking the organs and flesh of his victims. Will then discovered that the killer was not keeping the parts as trophies; he was eating them, as all the body parts taken were known ingredients in many types of foods (e.g. the tounge). He stopped by his good friend, Hannibal Lecter's, house to report to the psychiatrist on his findings. As Lecter left the room to supposedly to retrieve Will's coat, Will found a book in the room featuring a picture of "The Wound Man" which matched a victim perfectly. Will realized Hannibal had been the killer he was searching for, but was soon ambushed by the psychiatrist. After a long, hard battle, Will overpowered Lecter and incapacitated him. As the psychopath fell, so did Will. Lecter and Will soon recovered from the ordeal; Hannibal was then incarcerated with nine consecutive life sentences, and Will retired due to the trauma. Red Dragon Will's former boss, Jack Crawford, came to his beach house and requested for his assistance in the capture of a new serial killer called "the Tooth Fairy," a mindless man who murders families every full moon. Will reluctantly agreed to help, but decided only to take photos around the victims' houses. Will soon finds that the killer takes his victims by watching them on Home Video tapes. Throughout the novel, the perspective changes from Will Graham's to Francis Dolarhyde's.(The Tooth Fairy, later called "The Red Dragon") Francis Dolarhyde is a victim of psychological abuse as a child due to his legal guardian, his grandmother. It is implied that he chooses his victims based on their similarity to his mother and the second family she had after abandoning him. Will asks Hanniba Lecter to help him profile the killer, and Lecter suggests that the Tooth Fairy may be disfigured. Will does not make any other physical contact with Hannibal Lecter, until he gets a letter from him later in the novel. “Dear Will, Here we are, you and I, languishing in our hospitals. You have your pain and I am without my books—the learned Dr. Chilton has seen to that. We live in a primitive time—don’t we, Will?—neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books. I wish you a speedy convalescence and hope you won’t be very ugly. I think of you often. Hannibal Lecter” Excerpt From: Harris, Thomas. “Red Dragon.” The novel also builds on the relationship with Will Graham's wife Molly Graham and his step-son Willy. The relationship is strong throughout most of the novel, but deteriorates around the end of the novel, when Willy goes to his grandparent's house and they remind him of his biological father. Will tries to re-establish the bond with him and his step-son, but to not much avail. His wife Molly is also seemingly distant from him, which could be understood since Will is out hunting the tooth fairy for the most part of Red Dragon. “Graham and Molly wanted very much for it to be the same again between them, to go on as they had before. When they saw that it was not the same, the unspoken knowledge lived with them like unwanted company in the house. The mutual assurances they tried to exchange in the dark and in the day passed through some refraction that made them miss the mark.” Excerpt From: Harris, Thomas. “Red Dragon.” Berkley, 1981-01-02T00:00:00+00:00. Around the end of the novel, when Francis Dolarhyde is presumably dead, Will is settled in with Molly and Willy in their home in Florida. When he is inside the house, Francis Dolarhyde attacks him with a blade and leaves his face severely disfigured. Molly Graham hears the commotion, rushes inside and kills Francis Dolarhyde. Will is then sent to the hospital, where Jack Crawford tries to explain in intervals what happened to him and the case as a whole. After Jack leaves, Will has some sort of epiphany about human nature and mentions a snake named Shiloh. His last thoughts in Red Dragon are: “He wondered if, in the great body of humankind, in the minds of men set on civilization, the vicious urges we control in ourselves and the dark instinctive knowledge of those urges function like the crippled virus the body arms against. He wondered if old, awful urges are the virus that makes vaccine. Yes, he had been wrong about Shiloh. Shiloh isn’t haunted—men are haunted. Shiloh doesn’t care.” Excerpt From: Harris, Thomas. “Red Dragon.” Berkley, 1981-01-02T00:00:00+00:00. Silence of the Lambs Will is seldom mentioned, once as a protégé of Jack Crawford's, but ultimately, he becomes a disfigured alcoholic residing in Florida. It does not mention whether or not Molly and Willy are still a part of his life. Category:Characters Category:Main Category:Red Dragon Category:Manhunter